Japantani!

Hit PLAY and listen for a few seconds just to understand how the beginning of my daily commute feels. Good from the beginning but you know it gets worse from there on in. To understand how today's ride felt you need to click the next link and let it play while you read. Now that we are warmed up after our ride next to the Tama river we are going to head out onto Setagaya Dori where the going gets rough. Rough as in very very old asphalt begging to eat your tyres as you roll. Here is where the trucks come into play and we can roll by Bexisoya (Becks Osoi ya!) where they only know about Trek bikes. Coming up there is a little hill where my handle scratched that car last X-mas and he never contacted me so I guess I am in the clear. And that is where we see him. Now I really did toy with his name for a bit because I didn't want to have some nameless enigma ruling in my head. Ruling by being faster than me. So I came up with two names, Japantani and Jipantani. Jipan is Japanese slang for jean pants and that is what he wears. Pretty much every time I see him he is in jeans and has his ponytail, yes ponytail, a flowing. I kept pace with him, not an easy task on 700x32's, until 246 which is the hill into Shibuya. That is where he earned his (P)antani. He moved into his drops and upped the pace. He up shifted as he climbed and I almost puked. I got the top, where I turn off and he kept flying along on his nondescript road bike, ponytail a flowing. After that everything at work seemed boring and mundane BUT I got 2 bagels.